Nonureva Really Surprised!

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

HotToastyRag Based off of Terence Rattigan's plays, Separate Tables is one of the few stage adaptations that transfers extremely well to the big screen. Most play-to-film adaptations are woody and wordy, and the dialogue is extremely artificial. If you've seen a Tennessee Williams movie, you know what I mean. William Inge's plays usually translate well, as does this film, which was nominated for seven Oscars and won two in the 1959 ceremony.The entire film takes place in an English hotel that's like a permanent bed and breakfast. Wendy Hiller, who won Best Supporting Actress, gives an excellent strong, subdued, and conflicted performance as the hotel proprietress. She's romantically involved with one of her tenants, Burt Lancaster, a tortured soul with a violent temper who drowns his sorrows in alcohol. What will happen when Rita Hayworth, Burt's old flame, comes to town? Gladys Cooper virtually reprises her role from Now, Voyager and plays a controlling, judgmental mother to Deborah Kerr. Deborah gives one of her finest performances; on the surface she's frightened, meek, and obedient, but underneath it all is a ticking time bomb, ready to explode with hatred of her life.David Niven is another resident, an old, retired Major, always full of entertaining war stories and a kind word for the sheltered Deborah Kerr. Niven won Best Actor for his performance, and while I am probably one of his biggest fans, it always seemed odd to me that he was up for Best Actor rather than Best Supporting Actor. His character is the central crux of the plot, but the screen time is pretty equally split among the main characters. It's hard to pick out one actor or actress as "the lead". Niven is aged up for the role, and puts on a blustering persona to fit his character. He ends his sentences with a "what, what?" as a proverbial English Major would, but it's clear from the first scene he's hiding something. His constant covering is subtle and layered superbly. He doesn't act like he's "acting", and his performance certainly couldn't have been seen from the back row of the theater, but if you're on the lookout for every flinch on his face and slight pause of his words, you'll see a remarkable performance.The worst part of the movie is Rita Hayworth. I've never been a fan of hers, and she brings nothing special to this role. Her mediocrity might not have been felt on its own, but she was surrounded by such fantastic performances and was showed up constantly. Still, Rita aside, this movie is definitely worth watching. It's a fantastic classic, with a tense, judgmental plot, but one that will keep you on the edge of your seat all the same. For a great double feature, rent Come Back, Little Sheba and Separate Tables-and don't be surprised if you get a lump in your throat more than once.

sesht A wonderful interplay of characters and words in this magical adaptation of a stage play, anyone unfamiliar with the material, like I was at the time, will be rewarded with all the goings-on at Hotel Beauregard. A collection of characters, both long-term and short, at the aforementioned hotel, gather at the time of this narration, at various points in their lives. There are the (for those times, at that place) illicit unmarried couple, one of whom is more intent on the romantic getaway than the other, who'd rather focus on an upcoming examination.There is a mother-daughter couple, one of whom hold dominance/sway over the other, and that dynamic is painful for all those who behold them, including this viewer.There is the boorish ex-armyman, who's fulla stories that test everyone's patience, and attention-span, and who's completely oblivious to the effect he has on his fellow-person, and keep at it anyway. And the mainstay, of course, is the return of an old flame into a milieu where the one who lit that flame has seemingly moved on, to, let's just say, stabler pastures? hardly a powder-keg waiting to go up, but go up it does, with media, whispers and gossip doing their jobs quite effectively, until it all comes to a head. Once again, as with most of the works made in this time, very economical story-telling, and powerful monologues as well as dialogues from all characters, who put in strong performances. The score though, and this is something typical for flicks made in this time and period, is very in your face, and if one learns to ignore its manipulation, one will be rewarded for said effort. Kerr is almost unrecognizable, but Lancaster and Niven do their schtick, and that's not a bad thing, since I'm still not able to visualize anyone else doing what they've done here. Definitely their A-game. Worth repeat viewings.

Claudio Carvalho In Bournemouth, England, the Beauregard Hotel is located three minutes from the sea and managed by Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller). It is off-season and only the resident guests are lodged in the hotel. The timid Sibyl (Deborah Kerr) is a spinster and hysterical woman totally controlled by her arrogant and snobbish mother Mrs. Maud Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) that does not want that she works. Sybil is secretly in love with the reformed Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven) and she enjoys listening to his stories about his life. Lady Gladys Matheson (Gladys Cooper) is the only friend of Mrs. Railton-Bell. The medical student Charles (Rod Taylor) wants to marry his fiancée Jean (Audrey Dalton) but she refuses. Miss Meacham (May Hallatt) and Mr. Fowler (Felix Aylmer) like to play billiards and she always wins the game. The American John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) is an alcoholic writer that is secretly engaged of Pat.When the elegant and gorgeous Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) checks in the hotel, John is affected by her presence and Pat learns that Ann is his ex-wife that he had tried to kill five years ago. Meanwhile Major Pollock unsuccessfully tries to steal the newspaper West Hampshire Weekly News from the reception. However, Mrs. Railton-Bell arrives and finds an infamous article about him and she tries to expel him from the hotel. These events will affect the lives of the residents."Separated Tables" is a film based on a play with a story of loneliness, secrets and revelations in a hotel in Bournemouth. The theatrical plot is developed in slow pace inside the hotel and the lives of the lonely guests are entwined with the arrival of a beautiful woman and the discovery of a secret about the behavior of one guest, changing the relationship of them.This film won the Oscars of Best Actor in a Leading Role (David Niven) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Wendy Hiller), and was nominated to five other Oscars (Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr); Best Cinematography in Black-and-White; Best Music Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture; Best Picture; and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium). In addition, "Separated Tables" has another five wins and seven nominations. The number of prizes (7) and nominations (12) is the best indication of how great this film is. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Vidas Separadas" ("Separated Lives")

jc-osms About as far removed from his American playwright contemporary Tennessee Williams as you could get, yet there's a place in my heart for English dramatist Terence Rattigan and his perhaps subtler expositions of motive, need, weakness and ultimately dignity in the human condition.Interestingly, this movie adaptation of his mid 50's play, slightly improbably makes prominent use of American actors, although fortuitously possibly, this helps to elevates its status to a wider and higher level and almost certainly helped it to get noticed by the Academy at the awards round.Director Mann doesn't try too hard to "open out" the play for the cinema, realising its strength lies in depicting the enclosed stultifying world of the not-quite "Grand Hotel", it acting as a metaphor for the trapped existences of its various inhabitants. That said, none of the main characters hardly seem drawn from reality, but once you concede the writer's dramatic licence, you have to admire his skill in their interplay and the well-managed conclusion which works too as an indictment against narrow-minded intolerance as the fellow-guests at last react against flinty old Lady Matheson (Cathleen Nesbitt) and her petty-minded outrage at and desired expulsion of David Niven's disgraced "Major" character. Niven won the Oscar for his performance and you can see why, moving from blustery, caddish bonhomie (his "what what" refrain really gets on your nerves as he himself honestly admits) to his awkward embarrassed demeanour at the end. In support, I also enjoyed the playing of Wendy Hiller as the school-marmy hotelier, Deborah Kerr as Nesbitt's sexually repressed daughter and Gladys Cooper as her put-upon friend who like the daughter rises up but gently to overturn the Major's victimisation and rehabilitate him.It doesn't all work, Lancaster and Hayworth's story seems to belong in a different play / film and the minor parts are too sketchily drawn (Rod Taylor and his randy girlfriend too obviously counterpointing the sexual gaucheness of Kerr's Sibyl) and a too obvious Margaret Rutherford type inserted no doubt to add some humour.I'm pretty sure it would have made for a better night out at the theatre than the cinema, but I wouldn't deny the play's elevation to a wider audience and certainly didn't regret checking in on this occasion.